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carrier 50ez 4 ton heat package unit heat pump

this unit described above has sat outside our home for a year, since the compressor blew. The unit was around under 3 years old and was a complete lemon from the get go. Weve put in frigidaire window units in to get by. Carrier gave me the usual spiel that your on your own if you dont have full labor coverage on the unit. I was told also by the customer service supervisor that 2 and a half years to 3 years was an acceptable length of life for the unit. So Ive advised others and they have avoided the carrier brand. Admittedly the installers did (Some A/C Company of Kentucky) didnt seem to know what they were doing either. When they first put it in they didnt have the heat pump and furnace wired to work in tandem, so it couldnt maintain comfortable heat and we were getting exhorbitant bills. The heat quit after it was a year old and the heat pump didnt work either, just after the labor warranty expired. a $ lump of junk. a lot of breakdowns, one time the fan blade even fell off the shaft inside the condensor coils compartment.

Pricing isn't allowed

No-one has explained to me why the copeland scroll compressor would blow up like that, and before that it had been laboring everytime the pump cycled. You could see the lights in the house pulsing and dimming. could it have been a restriction in the lines? Im not a hvac engineer, but I have a degree in mech engineering and i like to know whats going on here.
thanks, jon

Last edited by beenthere; 06-21-2013 at 05:31 AM.
Reason: Removed company name

when the a/c was working, I noticed that when the air shut off (after cooling up to its thermostat setting) you would hear the sheet metal pop loudly on the unit everytime. Maybe a sign of a static pressure issue?

the unit is hooked up to a '86 double wide with horrible cheap thin ductwork trunking which runs along middle each half of the home. home is 60' long. had problems early on with the sheetmetal screw not holding the main in and return ducts to the trunk. its like a pop can. homeowner (me) had to fix numerous ducting leaks. 2 times the main ducts fell off. and it was warming/cooling under the house.

about 1700sq feet. west kentucky. The unit has 5yr parts and 10yr compressor warranty. only a carrier authorised hvac engineer can repair the unit? besides anyway would it be worth fixing it with all the labor needed to put a new compressor and refill with r410. also i may still have the same thing happen again if the static pressure is wrong.

It's hard to say if you are oversized on your unit without doing a load calculation on your house. I would get the parts replaced while they are still under warranty because a heat pump would be more efficient than window shakers. I would also insist on the reversing valve to be replaced with the compressor as this could have cause the compressor a premature death, i am not sure the warranty length of the reversing valve. I clears sounds that your duct work may be the culprit by being undersized. I would contact a Carrier dealer in your area to come and do a load calculation and inspect the duct work. I know it might be tough to call after being burned but there are some good and honest companies out there.

How in the world did they manage to mess-up a package unit?Who messed with it?

The duct system appears to be a likely problem; have he static pressures checked at different points to see if a major problem(s) can be found.

That's what I was thinking. One of the easiest installs in our industry. You just have to get it set, wire up correctly and hook up ductwork. I have done one in 4 hours but I always get a sheet metal to do the ductwork at the transition to ensure proper fitting and sealing is done.

My guess would be wired wrong and or ductwork caused the compressor to fail? I don't understand why carrier is not wanting to warranty the compressor? There might be something else going on here that we don't no about!

they would warranty the compressor, but would I trust the unit again. Why would I want to spend a ton of money when the duct work could be wrong regarding static pressure, or it was wired in wrong. The installer should know the basic fundamnetals of installing a system, size of unit and required duct work. Shortly after I had the system put in, while I was out at work one cold night my wife called and said it broke down and she called the engineer who said one of their installers had wired it wrong, which was why it wasnt keeping the house warm.
what chance of you got with companies like this around. Id have saved a ton of money putting in window units from the start. How would putting in too large a unit affect things?

Undersized ductwork could have caused vibrations that are not normal and contributed or caused to all of the problems you had. Whether it's the rigth size or not is irrelevant if you don't have ductwork large enough to handle it. The choice then to either improve the ductwork, or live with a slightly undersized unit.